Unwanted Revelations
by Leraiv Snape
Summary: While planning Sherlock's escape from Moriarty, Mycroft and Sherlock are forced to confront Sherlock's feelings about his flatmate - and how they will handle John afterwards. Pre-Slash. Set during The Reichenbach Fall.


Disclaimer: _Sherlock_ is not mine - the current show belongs to the BBC, the original stories to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Respects paid for allowing us to play with these characters.

A/N: I have fallen in love with BBC's _Sherlock_ rather abruptly, and love the way that the Watson/Sherlock relationship is presented in the show. Their friendship is truly a thing of beauty - as is the amusing way that most other view it. This is my first (and hopefully not last) piece for this series. Please enjoy the story!

Unwanted Revelations

"Moriarty will doubtless insist on something ridiculous and drastic." Sherlock was pacing in his brother's study. His stride kept in time with the rapidity of his thoughts – measured, not frantic.

"His aim is to bring you completely to your knees, little brother," Mycroft said quietly from his desk. He had one eye on the Egyptian situation and the other on his sibling. "Given what he has asked about you, and now what he has gone out of his way to ensure the press publishes about you, his obsession is dangerous. He is striking at the very heart of who you are."

He knows what Moriarty said to his brother that night at the pool when Sherlock baited him with the Bruce-Partington plans – and Moriarty had upped the ante by rigging John Watson to explode. Every last, damning word had been captured. The pool's CCTV had been disabled, but Mycroft had never been so foolish as to rely on a single source of information. He had no picture from the event, but every sound, magnified by the tiles, had been dutifully recorded.

" _I will burn you. I will burn the_ heart _out of you."_

His reputation. His life's work. All that could matter to a high-functioning sociopath.

And John Watson. The aberration in Sherlock's well-ordered world. Whom Moriarty had unfortunately learned meant more to his brother in some undefinable way than either solving crimes or being acknowledged for it.

"You have agents watching John?" Sherlock's pacing paused mid-stride.

The predictable question. "Twenty-four hour surveillance on our good doctor, Sherlock." And the men were reporting that it wasn't easy. John Watson was a military man – honorably discharged home, to be sure, but the instincts hadn't disappeared. Two of Mycroft's agents had already written memos stating that they couldn't be sure that the doctor hadn't identified them. If he had, at least he seemed ill-inclined to fight their protective eye or worry over the agents too much.

That, or else he had assumed the agents were for his brother and had little desire to disrupt Mycroft's umbrella protection policy.

"John will be all right," Sherlock murmured, mostly to himself. Mycroft tilted an eyebrow. His brother's concern for the doctor was touching…but they had seen a year ago that the depth of his affection was treading the border of dangerous. He had wondered at first what Sherlock saw in the too-all-appearances-ordinary physician, but John Watson's fierce loyalty—

" _I haven't mentioned a figure."_

" _Don't bother."_

" _You're very loyal, very quickly… Could it be that you've decided to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people?"_

—his steadiness under fire, his even temper, had proven enormous assets to Sherlock and the Yard. And the British government. Mycroft had long (mostly) stopped concerning himself over Sherlock's attachment to the man and had become simply grateful for John's presence in the detective's hectic world.

"It is _you_ I am concerned about, Sherlock," Mycroft said finally. "Moriarty is seeking to kill you. That is the final move in his game – his final proof that he defeated you. You and John Watson walked away from that pool by sheer luck and a madman's mercurial whims."

"Hmm." The noncommittal reply that told Mycroft his brother found the analysis dull. Then Sherlock's face lit up in a smile – the bright, half-cracked one that never failed to appear when his brain was working through a solution that excited him. Mycroft sighed. That expression was going mean millions of taxpayer pounds. He could already feel it.

"If my death is all he's after, it would be quite churlish not to oblige him, don't you think?" The grey eyes were dancing. The elder Holmes sighed and turned his attention from the Twitter feed that was lighting up the world from Cairo, training the entirety of his attention on his brother.

"What, exactly, do you have in mind, Sherlock?"

"Let him kill me. We can plan for that, certainly. We let him back me into a corner, let him believe he's made me desperate, disconsolate…in his 'final mercy' to me, he will allow me to control the time and place of our Last Confrontation – don't roll your eyes, Mycroft, you know that's how he thinks – it will be all too easy."

A few more spare sentences were all it took for Mycroft to glean exactly what his brother was proposing. It sounded ridiculously complicated at first glance…but in retrospect, it would take fairly little. He would prefer to use his own agents, but Sherlock's extensive homeless network would do the job and be far less noticable. And wouldn't begin to cost what he had feared. The British government began to relax.

"…easy enough to keep John in the morgue with Molly while I step off the roof. My fall ought to provide plenty of good photographs, so it will be easy to convince the press that Moriarty's accusations have driven me to suicide."

Sherlock clapped his hands, black leather slapping together as he strode up and down in front of the windows. "Then it will be easy to commence taking apart Moriarty's world wide network. You have been tracking them down?"

"As swiftly as is possible with everything else we've been doing, little brother. I would remind you that the government does not exist to cater strictly to your whims."

It was Sherlock's turn to roll his eyes and Mycroft continued deftly, "Not that Moriarty can be classified as a whim, which is why we have very nearly uprooted all the information required to bury his network alive."

"Excellent. John and I will leave as soon as the deception has been carried out." His brother actually started for the door – assuming his job as good as finished now that the plans had been made. It would be Mycroft's duty to put his necessary players in place. A £50 note in the right cup on Sherlock's part would set his pieces in motion.

But there was still one major flaw with his brother's plan. Mycroft pulled a long breath. Sherlock wouldn't like what he was going to say, might easily fly in the face of it as he did with so many of his brother's requests or suggestions. But it was his duty as the British government to be honest about their assets – both at home and abroad. And it was his job as big brother to tell the detective the things he didn't want to hear.

"Just you. Not John."

Mycroft felt, rather than saw, Sherlock stop moving. "Excuse me?" That voice was coldly lethal. It promised retribution. It had been turned on him before – although never over a human being. His misgivings deepened. Perhaps he _should_ have stayed worried about John's continuous presence in his brother's world.

But he had never backed down from his younger brother, and he wasn't going to start now. "John Watson isn't going with you, Sherlock. He will stay here."

"Of course he's coming." Sherlock had not turned to face his brother, his narrow shoulders tight.

"Absolutely not. It would be an unacceptable risk of resources, Sherlock. One is—"

"I need him!" Sherlock snarled, whirling and stalking to the desk, slamming both hands flat in front of Mycroft, making the bureaucrat jump. "He goes."

Mycroft stared into his brother's face, and felt his heart sink to his shoes. Not Sherlock. Not this. Not his "I'm a high-functioning sociopath, why should I care about other people?" little brother.

Irene Adler had been a curiosity, a distraction, a part of the greater game the detective constantly pursued. Sherlock had grown more attached to her than Mycroft had thought possible…but he had, in the end, been able to surrender her and her cultivated air of mystery without undue worry or disturbance. Both the elder Holmes and John had breathed easier when she had vanished and Sherlock had been willing to accept it.

But this…this naked, vulnerable demand _…"I need him!"_ Sherlock prior to John Watson never would have made such a statement. Never would have _felt_ this way. Certainly wouldn't have revealed it to him, Mycroft. He had broken their cardinal rule, exposed his greatest weakness.

This was not a power Mycroft wanted over his brother. Not something he'd ever wanted to know. _Don't get involved._ The rules of engagement their father had taught him, the same ones he'd passed down to an ever-eager Sherlock.

The ones he had followed…until the day an ex-Army doctor with a psychosomatic limp, a tremor in his left hand, and a thirst for adrenaline had come through the door at St. Bart's lab and given him an audience, a sounding-board…a best friend. And now, something else.

"Have you told him?" Mycroft asked, his lighter eyes never leaving his brother's dark grey.

Sherlock blinked, recalled himself, and straightened up, unsuccessfully trying to hide the blush tinting his cheeks. "Of course not. We've just now been making plans."

"Not that, Sherlock." His brother shot him an irritated glance, and Mycroft returned it with his best _don't be an idiot_ expression. "Don't pretend with me."

"There is nothing to tell." Sherlock's back was to him again, and tension radiated from the stiff arms, the hunched set to his shoulders.

"You haven't told Dr Watson you're in love with him."

Sherlock's head came up sharply, then he completely still. He didn't turn around. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"As you wish. But, little brother, I can tell you _exactly_ why John Watson isn't going with you." Sherlock made no indication he'd heard, but Mycroft ruthlessly pressed his point. He wasn't going to sanction this. Sherlock _could not_ flout his authority in this regard. _Especially_ if the younger man was in love with his flat mate.

"Pursuing Moriarty's network will be dangerous work."

"John has faced danger before, Mycroft. He invaded Afghanistan, remember?" _And he has been living your life for two years. Chasing criminals over rooftops. Kidnappings. Semtex strapped to his chest._

"That was as part of a military unit, following military rules, with an established order of command. You and I both know that pursuit and destruction of Moriarty's criminals is going to be nothing like a military operation. You will be out of contact with everyone, sometimes in remote corners of the world, other times operating in civilian populations. Even the assistance I will be able to extend you in many areas will be limited – sometimes, I will be unable to offer any help at all."

"All the more reason to have back-up I can trust with me." The detective's voice and body were back under his control. He faced his brother again, hands loose in his coat pockets.

"Two will be more easily remarked on than one, Sherlock." The grey eyes he had seen for the first time when he was seven years old were growing stormy with fury. "And the pair of you have become famous these past six months – in case you've forgotten. You and John Watson have covered the _Times_ more often than I think you are aware. Together, you will be noticed long before you can finish the job. If you both go, one of you will die. And then the second will follow. Probably within a month." Sherlock flinched at his flat assessment.

"Dr Watson will go first. He will take the bullet, or the knife, or the hammer, to save you." _And without John, you will be reckless. Having lost the only person who truly matters to you, you will burn yourself out. There will be life-and-death situations again and again and again…until you get your wish._

 _And I will have two bodies to bury. United in death as you were in life. Too young to go, and the work unfinished._

Sherlock's gaze was no longer focused on him, and Mycroft knew that he was reviewing the vivid picture his brother had painted.

Mycroft wished he were lying. He wanted never to have had this conversation – not to know what he knew, now, about Sherlock. Not to know what he could guess about Watson as well. Wished they could go together on this adventure, as they had shared all others since the doctor had been caught up in his brother's orbit two years ago.

But if both went, both would die. There had been too many close calls even here in London with Scotland Yard and Mycroft's agents at hand to observe, to diffuse, to quietly assist. And Watson would be a constant target – if only to destroy Sherlock. And destroy him they would.

Sherlock's hands were shaking in his coat. He saw Mycroft's eyes on them, and clenched his fists to still them. Mycroft knew that his brother would have been running the statistical likelihood of losing John in his head, and it was obvious the answer wasn't to his liking.

"John doesn't go," he bit out. "But the rest of the plan works as is, I trust."

Mycroft felt a surge of self-loathing so strong it nearly choked him, but he made himself say it. Not telling Sherlock now wouldn't change the truth. The elder Holmes had been involved in manipulating the public for two decades and there was one more piece that he needed to finish the illusion. He had to completely convince the public of Sherlock's death. Photographs alone weren't going to do the job.

For that, he needed John Watson. Broken by grief, on his knees at his best friend's grave, tears carving tracks down his face. An acting job on a scale the fundamentally honest ex-soldier could never accomplish.

John Watson had to _believe_ that Sherlock was dead. And then his brother could drop on Moriarty and his vast underground network from the sky like the avenging angel he was.

"John can't know, Sherlock." Had Anthea or any of his agents been present, they would have dropped whatever they were holding. Gentleness was not an adjective used to describe Mycroft Holmes. The man had set up and sabotaged whole governments with nary a change in his neutral expression.

But this was one brother speaking to another. Mycroft had half-raised him, and in Sherlock's pained expression, he could see the eight-year-old struggling to understand their grandmother's death, the eleven-year-old mouth set in an intractable line when Mycroft left for university.

"What?" Sherlock's voice was hoarse, a ruin of the beautiful baritone.

"John has to believe you're dead." Mycroft made himself say the rest. "He has to _watch_. He will need to check your pulse with his own hand."

His brother was already shaking his head, and, fisted or not, his hands were trembling in his pockets. "No."

"He must."

"I cannot do that to him. I have agreed to leave him here. You cannot ask me to deceive him like that – or to make him see the fall. It would—"

 _Break his heart._ Both heard the words, even though Sherlock would not say them.

Mycroft felt like he'd swallowed glass. Sherlock lied to whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted, without remorse. Here, suddenly, John Watson's feelings superseded his own safety in Sherlock's eyes. His little brother was farther gone than he'd realized. Mycroft couldn't push him into understanding this course of action. He could only guide him. "Sherlock, if he knows you're alive, what will he do?"

Grey eyes flashed, but his voice stayed low, raspy. "He will come after me."

"Exactly." But this was not a capitulation, merely a stating of the facts. "He will go after you. He would never allow you to face Moriarty and his network on your own. He will find you, endangering you both. Or he will die trying."

Mycroft could see the impact of this truth on his brother's austere features. Sherlock's eyes narrowed, his cheeks drawn together to sharpen the high bones slashing under his hooded gaze. His mouth pressed into a tight, cold line.

Finally, he jerked his head in what was almost a nod. Without speaking, he made for the door, his eyes peculiarly lifeless.

Mycroft cannot help himself as his brother's hand twists the knob. He has to give Sherlock – and himself – some form of hope. "Finish the job, Sherlock. Come home. John will be here – alive and safe."

The side of Sherlock's mouth he can see twisted into a cynical almost-smile. Without responding, he wrenched open the heavy oak door and stalked out.

Mycroft sighed, and reached for his teacup. His right hand was trembling. He frowned at it until his body stopped betraying him, then, when it was completely steady, finished the motion and lifted the black tea to his lips, still staring at the door and his brother's retreating back.

It was a long time before he could bring his attention back to Cairo.


End file.
